During this 2020 general election, I've been reading messages to "vote as if your life depended on it -- because it does."
Last week I delivered my completed ballot to a Sacramento County Elections ballot box in my neighborhood supermarket. Yesterday, I received an email from the Sacramento County Elections Department stating that it had received my ballot and it would be counted.
Since voting in my first election in 1978, I have missed only two elections. I don't take casting my ballot for granted. My paternal grandmother paid her property taxes on time in the Jim Crow South to maintain her right to vote. My family would go to the polling place together to perform their civic duty. Even when I was living in northwest Washington state during a presidential election year, I voted absentee on a California ballot.
While I was glad to see that my ballot reached the intended destination, I was dismayed when I read reports of people in Georgia waiting up to 10 hours to get inside their polling places to vote.
Texas has limited the number of places to drop off absentee ballots to one per county. One would think that government officials would encourage more voting, not less.
Unfortunately, voter suppression has been part of U.S. elections since the era of Reconstruction in the mid-1800s. Some powerful people within and outside government don't want to hear the voices of people of color, women, and members of the LGBTQ community. They know the vote is the most powerful weapon we have. Why else would the powers that be work so hard to suppress the vote?
After this election is over and the dust settles (God willing), I would like to donate to or volunteer with a voting rights organization. I believe people should have more voting options besides having to drive long distances to a polling place or waiting 10 hours or more to cast a ballot.
The late U.S. Congressman John Lewis said, "The vote is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have."
Don't waste it.
Writing Diva
